MHSAA drops Newberry, St. Ignace to Class D for 2014-15 season

March 25, 2014

HOUGHTON - The Michigan High School Athletic Association has released its classifications for the 2014-15 school year, and for the Central Upper Peninsula the most notable feature is the lack of change.

The only two movers in the U.P. for 2014-15 are both going down: Newberry and St. Ignace from Class C to Class D.

The MHSAA creates its four traditional classifications, A through D, by ordering the state's 749 participating schools from largest to smallest, then chopping them into four equally-sized groups.

The MHSAA only uses these traditional classifications to set the field in postseason tournaments for basketball and volleyball. They are also used in football to determine playoff point averages and thus tournament seeding. In other sports, such as hockey, participating schools are divided into nearly-equal divisions by enrollment regardless of their class.

Because the lines are recalculated each year without past considerations, a school with declining enrollment can stay in the class in which it has traditionally resided so long as it doesn't decline significantly faster than the statewide rate, which can be influenced by declining enrollment elsewhere and the creation of small charter schools in metropolitan areas.

The recalculation means there are only 12 Class C schools in the Upper Peninsula next fall: Ironwood, West Iron County, Calumet, L'Anse, Hancock, Iron Mountain, Norway, Gwinn, Negaunee, Ishpeming, Westwood and Manistique. There remain two Class A schools: Marquette and Sault Ste. Marie; and five B schools: Escanaba, Gladstone, Menominee, Kingsford and Houghton.

Fact Box

2014-15

MHSAA Classes

Superiorland Schools

Enrollment in

parenthesis

Class A

882 and up

Marquette (1,090)

Class C

215-423

Negaunee (417)

Gwinn (331)

Manistique (319)

Westwood (318)

Ishpeming (260)

L'Anse (230)

Class D

214 and below

Newberry (211)

Munising (194)

Baraga (158)

Superior Central (126)

Rep.-Michigamme (47)

The move may constitute a tipping point in those tournaments. In the past, the MHSAA has taken measures to limit downstate schools from being forced to play regional tournament games above the Mackinac Bridge, including the creation of rare three-team

district tournaments, but with only a dozen C schools and none from Manistique to the Bridge, the MHSAA may have to either chop up traditional groupings (such as this year's Calumet-L'Anse-Hancock-Ironwood tournament or the four-team Marquette County district) or send a whole district north. Schools in Indian River and Harbor Springs have already been playing district games above the bridge and the likes of Rogers City (newly promoted from 'D' for 2014-15), Boyne City and Charlevoix may find themselves joining them. The boundaries of district tournaments will be announced later in the year.

From a competitive standpoint the biggest change may come in girls' basketball, in which Region 24 will have a champion other than Houghton or St. Ignace for the first time since 2008.